


Finding Bing-Bong

by Goonlalagoon



Category: Inside Out (2015)
Genre: because ow my heart, it's a fix it fic for Bing Bong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 02:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11934069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonlalagoon/pseuds/Goonlalagoon
Summary: No-one was quite certain where Bing-Bong came from. He was just…there, one day, when Riley wanted to play hide and seek but had no one to play with.





	Finding Bing-Bong

No-one was quite certain where Bing-Bong came from. He was just…there, one day, when Riley wanted to play hide and seek but had no one to play with.

Joy burrowed through old memories, trying to find clues. There were still memories of Bing-Bong, faded and fading faster as he was forgotten. Joy rescued them, stashed them in headquarters and didn’t dare try hooking them up to the projector in case they crumbled away.

There were memories of tag, of adventures, of Bing-Bong curling up on the bed when Riley had a bad dream to keep her safe.

Joy rolled one back on a whim and was no longer surprised when it turned blue. Riley had fallen and cut her knee, spilling her bag of sweets all over the ground. Bing-Bong cried too, but instead of tears - Joy remembered! She’d…she’d taken over the control from Sadness and tried to make things happy, and Bing-Bong had wept candy until Riley giggled.

Disgust rolls her eyes at the suggestion they help mom go through one of the old boxes from the attic, full of baby things, but with Joy and Sadness taking their turn at the helm it turns out Riley is on the mood for nostalgia that day.

It’s under Riley’s first hockey trophy and a scattered handful of swim school badges, lovingly unpicked from a worn out swim towel for safekeeping years ago.  
“This was your favourite book! Your granny gave it to you. You used to refuse to let go of it when you went to bed, for years.”

Riley turns the pages, laughing. Disgust crinkles her nose at the chewed pages, while Joy’s smile falters as she recognises - Bing-Bong.

Elephant head, cat tail, chatter chatter like a dolphin - she scrambles for the memories, heart breaking all over again. This was where he’d come from - a book where you turned part pages to mix and match body parts.

“Bing-Bong!” Riley frowns, puzzled. “What? What did I just -” Joy scrambles for the memories, almost dropping them in her haste. Sadness clings the the controls and Riley isn’t quite certain why this picture game book is so - sad. Riley’s mom looks up.  
“Bing-Bong? Oh, that takes me back! He was your -”  
“My imaginary friend!”

Riley laughs, old half-forgotten memories brought abruptly back to the surface as Joy stands under the projector, clutching a bare few precious greying memories.  
“Bing-Bong! With - with the cart!”  
“Oh, yes…I have a photo of you in that cart somewhere. You were determined to fly to the moon, someday, after we took you to the science museum. You loved the planetarium to pieces. We bought those glow in the dark stars you still have, the ones on your ceiling and walls.”

Joy weeps. Anger and Disgust don’t know what to do. Fear is panicking. Sadness pats her on the arm and somehow says the right thing.

They find a crayon drawing (do you remember how she used to stick her tongue out when she coloured with crayons?) and for some reason that can’t quite be verbalised, Riley tucks it behind two stars, sailing across the bedroom walls, on course for the moon.

Joy and Sadness watch the dreams that night in quite companionship. Stars whirl past as they rode a rainbow. Someone is singing. Riley smiles and sleeps, unafraid.

In Imagination Land, something with an elephant head and a cat’s tail and a dolphin’s chatter wakes up, and starts to hum.


End file.
